Core Conditions of our policies
On this website we offer two policies. One is linked to your mortgage and will pay out for up to 12. The other policy is available to people who have no mortgage but still want to protect themselves from unemployment.

We have researched the market and feel these policies are the among best in their respective categories. We are not obliged to sell the policy of any particular company. We constantly review the policies we offer and can change them at any time.

12 Month Mortgage Related Policy

While this website features two distinct policies, there will be a few occasions when your personal circumstances will mean that you are not eligible for the featured policy. In such cases our quote engine will automatically substitute a policy that has similar terms and conditions to the featured policy. We promise in such circumstances to offer you the cheapest alternative available.

What you need to know
Mortgage Payment Protection & ASU
Income Protection Policies (IP or PHI)
Why these policies?
Overlapping Policies
This Policy Will Never Pay Out If...
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

What you need to know
If you are unable to work because you have become unemployed, or you are long term sick, or have an accident, you will not receive any financial support from the State until 9 months have elapsed.

After this point, if you qualify for assistance, you will only receive sufficient support to pay the interest element of your mortgage, and even then help is restricted to the first £100,000 of your mortgage. Different rules apply if you took out your existing mortgage before 1 October 1995.

There is no financial support available from the State to help pay off the actual mortgage debt, nor to pay for any associated life insurance or mortgage related savings plans.

If your partner works more than 16 hours per week, or you have savings of more than £8,000, you will receive no financial help whatsoever.

Whilst your mortgage company must deal with your situation sympathetically and positively, ultimately your home is at risk if you do not keep up payments on a mortgage or other loan secured on it.

There is a 1 in 7 chance of a working adult being off work for more than 6 months due to illness or injury.*

More than 2 million people have been off work and claiming benefits for a period of 6 months or more.*

You are three times more likely to be off work for more than 3 months due to illness or injury than to die before age 65.*

* Source - Department for Work & Pensions (DWP), 2004
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Mortgage Payment Protection & ASU

There is a great deal of confusion about Mortgage Payment Protection Insurance (MPPI) and Accident, Sickness & Unemployment Insurance (ASU). They are effectively the same thing. A mortgage payment protection policy is set up to pay mortgage related costs should you be in a position where you can’t make the payments yourself. It is also possible to insure yourself if you do not have a mortgage.

Where a policy is specifically taken out to protect a mortgage, the benefit must relate directly to your mortgage costs, although some policies will allow a small additional benefit to be paid if required. It is important to decide what eventualities you want to cover. Many self employed people would instantly lose their income if they were unable to work due to accident or injury, therefore they would seek to cover these eventualities. They may not however necessarily want to include unemployment insurance as it may be difficult for them to prove in the event of a claim.

People in regular employment may not be as concerned about covering accident and sickness, if they feel their employer will pay them, but they may be concerned about redundancy and their chances of finding work elsewhere. In this case they may only want a redundancy insurance policy.

For the vast majority of people, both unemployment and the impact of long term sickness or injury are of sufficient concern to make them to decide upon a policy that covers all eventualities.

A policy taken out to protect income normally allows you to insure a percentage of your gross income. It is not possible to protect all of your income as the insurer wants you to be incentivised to return to work.

These policies are available upon application without the need for underwriting or medical examination. There are certain criteria that would not be covered in the event of a claim, and these are covered respectively in the “Unemployment” and “Accident & Sickness” parts of this website.

Some of the larger insurance companies issue policies that coincide with the term of your mortgage, however the most popular policies have no specific term and are renewable annually.
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Income Protection Policies (IP or PHI)

Mortgage Protection policies should not be confused with Income Protection Policies (PHI) which pay out against accident and sickness only. These policies are linked to your earnings and typically have a term until retirement age. These are fully assessed insurance policies and underwriting may be required.

The main differences between Income Protection Policies and Accident, Sickness and Unemployment insurance policies are:

ASU polices will only pay for a period typically not more than 18 months
PHI could pay out for many years, possibly until retirement age
PHI does not offer redundancy insurance
PHI requires full underwriting
PHI is based upon your income and not your mortgage

If you would like to know more about Income Protection Policies, please contact Platinum Financial Consulting and we will be more than willing to help.
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Why these policies

As an independent finance company, Platinum Financial Consulting is not committed to sell the policies of any one company.

We try to identify the best policy in each individual sector. We evaluate the policy available on a number of criteria such as the terms and conditions offered, the claims payment history of the company, the financial strength of the company providing the insurance and perhaps most importantly the premium.

Although we have many more policies available to us, the ones that we have selected are currently the policies which we consider to the the best policy of its category. We can however stop selling a policy if a better policy becomes available, or the service offered by the company is not of a standard that we would accept for our customers.

Many of the companies who offer this insurance on-line are either selling their own policy, or trying to offer everything in the hope that you will buy something from them. We build a personal relationship with both our customers and the insurance companies who provide their policies. This means that we can ensure that our customers are always receiving the best service available.

Our independence means that we can reject those policies that we feel do not offer both quality or competitive premium. Because of our approach we have been offered exclusive terms and conditions for our customers. Equally we have removed products from our website which we feel are not in the best interests of our clients.

Should we change an insurance provider we will assess the new policy against those held by existing policy holders and where appropriate we will offer the customer the alternative policy.
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Overlapping Policies

If you are buying your policy to replace an existing policy that is still in force, then the exclusion period when a claim could not be made is normally waived. This means you could take advantage of any additional benefits and a cheaper price without any loss of cover. We can not guarantee this until speaking with the underwriter, if this is important to you please declare it at the point of application.

Details of the existing policy would need to be provided.
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This Policy Will Never Pay Out If:

You cease to be resident in the UK or
Are involved in civil commotion, riot, insurrection or war.
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These notes are intended as a guide only. They should not be considered as specific advice.

Upon application we will confirm you have supplied all necessary information, and inform you of the terms and conditions of the selected provider, before the policy comes into force.

If you think these notes are incomplete or misleading in any way, please contact us immediately

redundancy insurance

Many people are concerned about what would happen to them if they were made redundant. Most people are unaware that redundancy insurance is an option. Almost everybody can apply for a redundancy insurance policy no matter what their employment circumstances. When you purchase a redundancy insurance policy you are protected should your employer decide to make you redundant, as long as you do not take voluntary redundancy. Each policy will have its own terms and conditions and we therefore recommend that you read the policy document in full before buying any redundancy insurance policy. While this type of insurance is mainly aimed at the employed the self employed can also purchase a redundancy insurance policy, the conditions for claiming are naturally more stringent, but it is possible for the self employed to claim. Many people make the mistake of waiting until they feel redundancy is likely before buying a policy, however the insurer will put conditions in place to protect themselves from people who buy a redundancy insurance policy when they know they are going to be made redundant. Our view is, if you are concerned about redundancy the best time to but a redundancy insurance policy is now.

unemployment insurance

You can insure yourself against losing your job by purchasing an unemployment insurance policy. The vast majority of these policies are bought to protect a mortgage and typically they will also include accident and sickness cover. These policies are more commonly known as mortgage payment protection polices or ASU which stands for accident, sickness and unemployment insurance. The unemployment element of the policy is designed to protect you if you lose your job through no means of your own. Obviously examples would be redundancy or company relocation. If you were dismissed for gross miss-conduct then your unemployment insurance policy is unlikely to pay out. These polices are aimed at giving you peace of mind when you are in work and perhaps more importantly when you are out of work. When times are hard and people are concerned about their future an unemployment insurance policy at least allows you to know that your major financial commitments such as your mortgage are taken case of. If you are unfortunate enough to lose your job financial pressures could result in you having to take employment in a field where you have little or no expertise. If you are receiving benefit from an unemployment insurance policy that immediate financial pressure is removed and you can focus your efforts at finding employment in your chosen career.

mortgage payment protection

A mortgage is one of the biggest financial commitments you may ever make. You promise to make regular monthly payments to your mortgage lender for a number of years, typically 25 years. Are you certain you can make all the payments ? If not then mortgage payment protection is something you should consider. If you were unfortunate enough to lose your job or if you suffered an accident or illness then you may not be able to make your monthly mortgage payments. This could lead to arrears and other problems with your mortgage lender. A mortgage payment protection insurance policy looks to pay your monthly mortgage payment if accident sickness or unemployment prevent you from working, They will typically pay your mortgage for up to 12 months, for many people this could make the difference between having their property repossessed or keeping their home. If you have a longer term illness then mortgage payment protection will not keep on paying your mortgage for ever, but by taking care of the important first year you can start to make plans for the future without the pressure of a mortgage lender making constant demands. The premiums for mortgage payment protection are relatively cheap especially when compared to the financial loss you could face. You may feel that given your circumstances accident and sickness insurance is not necessary or unemployment insurance is irrelevant. The latter is particularly true for the self employed. The good news is that when you buy your policy you do not have to purchase those elements that you think necessary. This means that your mortgage payment protection policy could cover accident and sickness only or you could have a policy that only covered unemployment. It costs nothing to ask, at Platinum we are more than happy to answer any questions you have relating to mortgage payment protection. We will explain the policy if full and provide you with quotes without any obligation.

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